As the components required to build a computer system have reduced in size, new categories of computer systems have emerged. One of the new categories of computer systems is the “palmtop” computer system. A palmtop computer system is a computer that is small enough to be held in the hand of a user and can be “palm-sized.” Most palmtop computer systems are used to implement various Personal Information Management (PIM) applications such as an address book, a daily organizer, a to-do list and an electronic notepad, to name a few.
Palmtop computer users generally use their palmtop computers for both business and personal use. As such, various functions carried out by the palmtop computer (e.g. PIM functions) serve both business and personal purposes. For example, a calendar management program used as a daily organizer may serve to provide records of appointments for both personal and business use. Similarly, an address book can carry both business contacts and personal contacts, and a to-do list can have personal tasks as well as business tasks. The palmtop computer user can currently segregate some of these tasks by designating a category at the time of entry, and at the time of retrieval, selectively retrieve only certain categories. But, the additional steps involved in categorizing entries and data being retrieved is often too cumbersome to encourage the user to fully utilize the palmtop computer's categorization features. Thus, entries are often left uncategorized and retrieval of data generally is done globally to retrieve all entries without bothering to look only for a particular category. As a result, the calendar viewed is typically filled with both personal and business appointments, all entries are generally viewed in the address book and a mixed business/personal to-do list is generally viewed. Identifying the data of interest can thus be encumbered with irrelevant data.